In Bihar, politics has always been a performance theatre. For two decades, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been its central protagonist. Going by the spate of announcements he has made ahead of the assembly polls, it seems that he has no plans of sharing the limelight with anyone else. And, he has taken a leaf out of the Central government’s political playbook by coopting the very plank the opposition hoped to campaign on. Last April, the Centre, after months of dithering, made a surprise announcement to conduct caste census along with the decennial census, effectively taking away the opposition’s, particularly the Congress’s, potent and most saleable campaign slogan.
And so, the Nitish government has unveiled a series of pre-poll sops—from free electricity to 1.67 crore households, 33 per cent reservation for Bihari women in government jobs, increased social security pensions, free housing for the poor, one crore promised jobs and free bus rides for women. Many of these are similar to the post-poll promises of opposition parties.
While Bihar’s politics has always centred around caste, sops hold sway in wooing the aspirational voter. Take, for instance, the free power dole, which has helped parties like the AAP win elections in other states. Of the 1.86 crore domestic power consumers in Bihar, 1.67 crore consume up to 125 units per month. The scheme will be rolled out from August 1, nearly three months ahead of the polls. That means 90 per cent of the households will have ‘zero bills’ for at least three billing cycles before they cast their votes. Many view this as a sharp counter to Tejashwi Yadav’s offer to give 200 units free if voted to power. RJD’s Tejashwi is the prime contender for the chief minister’s post.
Another move that will directly benefit over 1.1 crore voters is the nearly threefold increase in social pensions (from Rs400 to Rs1,100), announced in June. Tejashwi had promised to increase it to Rs1,500. The social pension schemes benefit senior citizens, widows and persons with disabilities, and will cost the state Rs14,678 crore, up from the existing Rs5,469 crore.
And then in early July, the state cabinet approved a monthly stipend for students. While those who have cleared class 12 exams will be given Rs4,000 per month, Industrial Training Institute passouts will be given Rs5,000. Graduates and postgraduates will get Rs6,000 per month. Many see this as a counter to the Congress’s apprenticeship offers.
Employment has been a sticking point for the state government, and Nitish has tried to address it by offering to create over one crore jobs in the next five years. He also announced 33 per cent reservation in government jobs for women domiciled in the state. This narrowing of the beneficiary list is aimed at wooing listed women voters.
JD(U) leader Neeraj Kumar, however, says that Nitish has been announcing schemes way before the polls and not just ahead of them. “Even when the Union budget was presented, it was termed as Bihar budget,” he says. “Nitish Kumar asks for votes on basis of his work. His work is village-centric. When electricity reaches there, it makes the village smart. He has provided streets, water and roads. However, the state’s human index is a matter of concern for us, as our population is huge. So, he has adopted different means to address this.”
Not just Nitish, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, is personally invested in the state. BJP leaders say that Modi has visited Bihar 52 times since 2014. More recently, he has visited the state every month, inaugurating projects that target RJD strongholds like Madhubani. His pitch, too, is aimed at the aspirational youth, promising to turn Motihari into Mumbai, equal opportunities in Gaya as in Gurugram and industrial growth in Patna akin to Pune.
The opposition though argues that the Nitish government has been stealing its ideas. “All those announcements being made by Nitish Kumar were earlier made by Tejashwi Yadav.... They are copying him. They don’t have a vision or a programme,” says RJD spokesperson Mritunjay Tewari.
This freebie culture, while often couched in the argument of serving welfarist needs of the marginalised, has its demerits—fiscal and political. The Reserve Bank of India, in its December 2024 report on state budgets, argued: “An area of incipient stress is the sharp rise in expenditure on subsidies, driven by farm loan waivers, free/subsidised services (like electricity to agriculture and households, transport, gas cylinder) and cash transfers to farmers, youth and women.” The report argued that the states need to contain and rationalise their subsidy outgoes, so that such spending does not crowd out more “productive expenditure”.
On the political front, good governance is overtaken by the need to offer the best deal to voters, which influences the voting pattern.
The big question is whether the state-driven generosity will overwhelm the voters and help the ruling coalition tide over anti-incumbency. Also, the challenge for the Nitish government this election comes on two fronts: the Election Commission’s push for the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of voters list and internal bickerings. “The state government is trying to remove genuine voters and add fake voters with the help of ECI. The ECI is not an agency to check citizenship,” says Tewari. Both Tejashwi and Rahul Gandhi have jointly protested against the exercise. The opposition is mounting pressure on the government through judicial and parliamentary route, too. The outcome of the SIR battle in Bihar will decide if it will be rolled out in other poll-bound states as well.
And then there is Union minister Chirag Paswan of the Lok Janshakti Party, whose recent utterances of entering state politics is viewed as more of a challenge to the JD(U). During the 2020 polls, Chirag had parted ways with the National Democratic Alliance to contest alone. He targeted Nitish then while supporting Modi—seen as a tactical move to weaken Nitish and benefit BJP. The JD(U) did lose a number of seats, but the BJP went on to support Nitish for the chief minister’s post. Despite Paswan’s utterances and his ability to pull crowds, the BJP and the JD(U) say that the young Bihari leader will have to follow the coalition dharma when it comes to seat-sharing this time.
Also, the BJP may do a Maharashtra in Bihar—make its leader chief minister post polls despite projecting the incumbent before polls. But it will be easier said than done when it comes to Nitish Kumar.